


wild-haired, in the red fire dark

by mazily



Category: The Runaways (2010) RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazily/pseuds/mazily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The route is set: Los Angeles to Vegas, then Denver to Omaha to Chicago and New York. So of course the car breaks down in the Middle of Nowhere, Desert Hellscape, California.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wild-haired, in the red fire dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna/gifts).



"So then he tells me I look like a Sofia Coppola movie, which," Dakota says.

"Yeah," I say. My gum tastes like that blue stuff my mom used to put posters up in my room growing up. I spit it out into a tissue and stuff it in my pocket. Take a couple of strands of hair and start chewing on them. My Cons have a hole near the right big toe, and my sock shows through striped and fuzzy. I used up the last of the duct tape doing shitty origami the last time Lautner and I smoked up. “That’s, like, what the fuck. Seriously.”

Dakota leans against the wall as she tries to pull on her boots. She hops a couple of times. Hand and shoulder slapping against the wall. "Probably thought I was Elle.”

I shrug. Pull my sunglasses down into position, resist the urge to do my CSI: Miami impression. Grab the keys off the hook and slide the ring around my middle finger. Shadow box a little, throw a couple of jabs. There are a couple of hoodies on the mail table, and I grab them. Toss one to Dakota. “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s ride.”

Set the alarm on my way out. Double check it, just in case.

"Your mom's stopping by tomorrow," Dakota says. "C'mon."

The car’s new: black and large enough to fit everything Dakota forgot to ship out to New York ahead of us. A box of books here. Too many shoes there. I toss my bag in the backseat and slam the door shut. Keys in the ignition. Sun playing catch with a lonely cloud: hazy with morning. I adjust the mirrors and slide the seat back an inch.

“Ready?”

“Steady,” Dakota echoes. Her bare feet, bright pink toes, against the glove compartment.

We pull out of the driveway. I hold my hand out the window, middle finger up. Camera flashes flash. Someone says, "There's no guy, fuck" loud enough to hear over the engine. Dakota turns on the radio. Starts flipping through the channels.

"Three and a half hours to Vegas," I say. Pedal to the metal, in a crazy world with no traffic.

*

**Bella Lautner** @xxbellawolf_99 kstew at my dad's garage omgomgomg!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Bella Lautner** @xxbellawolf_99 no forreal pics don't lie pic.twitter.com/28Q...

*

The girl working the front desk at the Days Inn doesn't recognize Dakota. Just asks for a credit card and a signature and passes over the key card. Gum snapping. Doesn't really look away from the TV in the corner: American Idol, audition round. A guy in pink singing Like a Virgin to a tune all his own.

I keep my trucker cap down, hood up, even though the air conditioning in the lobby is for shit. I hold my copy of On the Road open in front of me. Don't even know what page it's on. Not that it matters: I know the entire thing by heart at this point. _"LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; New York gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets.""_

"C'mon," Dakota says.

I follow. The door jangles behind me. The air outside is punch in the face hot, and I glance around. No one's lurking. "Fuck it," I say, and I unzip my hoodie. Wrestle it off, hair catching in the zipper teeth. "This place is hell. Tell me there's somewhere that delivers."

"There's somewhere that delivers," Dakota says. Dry as the fucking air. I flip her off. "Seriously, how the fuck should I know?"

The motel looks like it belongs next to a beach somewhere, full of spring break blondes and drunk frat boys. Instead it's in the middle of the fucking desert. Deserted. The door to our room creaks when I push it open. Everything smells like bleach and sadness. 

I claim the bed farthest from the door--toss my book onto the fugly bedspread. The air conditioning buzzes, but the room's still warmer than a fucking bath. There's a notepad on the desk in the corner. A piece of paper with an ad for a nearby pizza joint. “Mushroom and extra cheese or peppers and onion?” I ask.

Dakota looks at me like I'm as dumb as, like, Chris Helmsworth. “Peppers and mushroom,” she says. “You call, I'm taking a shower.”

“They might recognize me,” I say. Did I remember to pack that giant floppy hat with the flowers on it?

“Oh my god, do you even hear yourself?” Dakota flounces into the bathroom—or flounces as much as someone can after spending the afternoon stranded in the desert waiting for AAA to finally show. There's dust in my _everything_. My toes are burned.

I raise my middle finger after Dakota's already closed the door between us. “You'd better not use all the hot water!” Not that I plan on using any, of course, but it's the thought that counts. I call in our order. Flop down on the bed. Pray that there aren't any fleas.

*

**John G. Griffith**  
Pretty sure I just delivered pizza to that chick from the vampire movie. Jealous?

Annie Griffth likes this.

*

“Cold pizza truly is the breakfast of champions,” I say.

“The garage called,” Dakota says. She locks the door behind her. Her cheeks are pink. 

“We need to buy more sunblock,” I say.

She passes me a McDonald's cup of coffee and I give her a quick nod of thanks while trying not to burn my tongue off. 

“So we either need to go back to LA or drive to Vegas without a working whatever-it-was the mechanic said he needed to special order.” Dakota takes the last slice. Folds it and lifts it to her mouth. She continues talking with a mouth full of red sauce and congealed cheese. “Which, oh right, we can't do. This trip is fucking cursed.”

“Okay, one, not cursed,” I say. “Also two, I have an awesome idea.”

Dakota rolls her eyes. “Yeah, we're still not taking the bus cross country.”

“Just to Vegas,” I say. I pick at the last of the cheese stuck to the bottom of the pizza box. It gets stuck under my fingernail, so I suck on my finger. Salty greasy goodness. “Then we get a new car and drive the rest of the way.”

"Which is awesome right until some Twihard from Barstow decides to stalk you and, like, forces you to marry them in an Elvis chapel and you're suddenly the subject of a creepy made-for-TV movie about terrible life choices," Dakota says. 

"Or a pop country song," I say. 

"Not helping," she says. She blows on her coffee, almost whistling. 

"We can always hitch," I say. Vacation by Kerouac: it's kind of a dream of mine. Sometimes I hate that I live now, when that's just never going to happen. Other times I remember I have an iPhone.

"TMZ headline: Actresses slain--no, because no way in hell am I doing something that stupid--Bella Swan killed by serial killer while hitchhiking across country. Dakota Fanning says 'It's tragic, but I told her so,' wears vintage Chanel at funeral."

"Fine," I say. I toss my empty cup into the trash and sit on the edge of the desk. The pizza box clatters to the floor. I spent weeks planning this trip: google mapping the entire route, picking out corny shit for us to see and do. And then the stupid desert killed my car. 

Dakota flops onto the bed. The frame creaks, and the entire room feels almost like it's going to shake apart into dust at any second. She rolls over, buries her head in the pillow. Says something I can't make out. Her hair is fanned out like she planned it that way. Gold in the sunlight streaming through the window.

*

Chlorine is steaming off the pool like something out of a horror movie. The lounge chair sticks to the back of my legs, and I'm sweating everywhere. Wet spot between my breasts. I grunt. Try to shift position to something even vaguely comfortable. I've read this book already, and the pool's actually starting to look appealing. Strange smell and mystery chemicals be damned.

"You think there's, like, ebola in the pool or something?" I ask.

Dakota peers over her sunglasses. Squints out at the pool. "At least," she says.

"Wanna go in anyway?" My t-shirt already halfway over my head. I pull my shorts down my legs, kick my way out of them. There's a red stripe on my thigh where I missed with the sunblock.

Dakota lies back down and puts her earbuds back in her ears. I run to the edge of the pool. Dive in before I can second guess myself. My eyes sting even though I keep them closed, and everything smells like chlorine and pee. 

I duck under the water. A couple of backflips and a handstand, my palms scraping against the floor, and I resurface. Hold on to the edge of the pool. Begin to kick like I'm in a kids' swim class or old ladies' aquarobics program. The sun feels less shitty. The smell seems to disappear. A chunk of my hair finds its way to my mouth, and I suck on the water. Chew on my split ends.

Dakota keeps on looking over at me, so I decide to be an ass. "I have a third eye yet?" A little too loudly: the family on the other end of the courtyard totally turns to look, and the mom doesn't exactly look thrilled.

Dakota does a quick up-and-down. "Nah, just the purple spots so far," she says. "Very chic."

To be honest, an extra eye would be pretty awesome. I'd be stuck doing SyFy movies for the rest of my career--goodbye LA, hello Vancouver--but at least I'd save time in makeup. Plus, you know, _an extra eye_. I turn and dive back into the water. Do a couple of really awkward laps across the pool. When I get back to the edge, I pull myself up like I'm in an Aerosmith video. Slow motion, mouth just slightly open. My arms shake a little--it's harder than it looks--and I scrape my elbow to avoid falling back into the water.

Dakota's cheeks are flushed. She looks down, picks at something near her leg.

I can't tell if she's laughing. I shake my head, and pull myself up so I'm sitting on the concrete.

*

To: perez@perezhilton.com  
From: imanurse762@gmail.com  
Subject: K-Stew and Dakota Fanning  
One attachment.

I think they're staying at our motel.

*

The air conditioning rattles and spits out freezing air. Dakota drags her comforter behind her like a cape; she's wearing two hoodies and a baseball cap, three pairs of socks, and her lips look almost blue. That could be a trick of the light though.

"Move," she says. She pushes at my shoulder, and I lean back against her hand. Push back against her and dig my heels in. "C'mon, don't be a dick." 

I move over a couple of inches. Unroll myself from the edge of the blanket. "Quick," I say, and hold it up. Dakota hops into the bed. Tosses her comforter on top of mine and tucks them under her. The bed dips in the middle. Her hand is cold when she touches my arm, and I flinch. Just a little.

"We're cuddling for warmth whether you like it or not," Dakota says. She inches closer. I take the earbud out of my other ear, and toss my iPhone toward the foot of the bed. Dakota's head is on my pillow. Turned so I can feel her breath against my cheek. I turn to face her, and her breath is minty fresh.

"Just, like, tell me if I'm reading this wrong," I say, "And, seriously, we'll be cool." And then I kiss her: a real kiss, none of that chaste peck on the mouth to test things out bullshit. It's not like we've never done this before, anyway--it's just that we've always been drunk, or on camera, or high, which means it feels like we've never done this at all. I don't know. She kisses back. 

Her hair is pulled up in a knot, damp from the shower. I wrestle with the elastic one-handed, and it snaps apart. Attacking my hand--I curse, pulling back, and suck on the sore spot for a second. Dakota laughs. "Bitch," I say.

"No you are," she says. 

We make out for a while, almost lazily. It's weird--and I feel like an ass thinking about this while her hand's on my breast, nail against my nipple; --but I always imagined we'd be rougher. More, I don't know, frenzied or whatever. I mouth my way down Dakota's throat. The string from her hoodie ends up near the corner of my mouth, and I suck on it. Just for a second, and then I pull back. Try to wrestle the stupid zipper into working.

Dakota's hands tangle with mine. "No," she says, "Let me." Shirts over her head in one go, her hair sticking up and out. My mouth feels dry--I really need to drink more water; blah blah hydration--and it hurts to swallow. I lick my lips. Feel my cheeks flushing. 

"God," I say. Dakota smiles. I start to babble. I always do: I'm such a dork, seriously, and she won't stop smiling at me. "No, shut up, can I eat you out, I'm going to, just give me a-"

She kisses me. Fingers tight around the hair near the nape of my neck. My eyes water, and I try to tell her she can pull harder between kisses and the sting of her teeth on my lip. I reach down. Push at the top of her sweatpants, "c'mon," and feel her feet kicking near my shins. She drops her head down on the bed. I have no clue how we ended up like this--her on her back, me half on top of her, neither of us naked enough. 

"Yeah, okay," Dakota says. She wriggles her pants off. I pull my t-shirt over my head. 

*

I wake up overheated and sticky, brain stuck in traffic on the freeway. Dakota's hair in my mouth where I probably tried to eat it at some point in the night, my arm flung across her waist. She's typing into her iPhone. Squinting at the screen. I kiss her shoulder. 

"I think I'm going to fly out," she says. 

I roll onto my back. The air conditioner is spitting warm air again. "Okay?" I put my hands behind my head and close my eyes. Maybe I'll do some crunches. My trainer would like that. I brace my feet against the mattress. Decide against it after all.

"Check your messages," Dakota says. Her voice sounds scratchy. Flat. "There's, someone sent our location to Perez, I'm having a car sent out."

I hold up my right hand. Middle finger up. 

"Oh, fuck you," Dakota says. I open my eyes and tilt my head to look at her. She's sitting hunched over herself, shoulders tensed. Her spine reminds me of a porcupine, and I just want to reach over and run my hand along it until she calms down. I sit up. Back against the headboard. 

"Morning," I say. 

Dakota shrugs. "Morning." 

I crab walk my way across the bed, sitting so our arms brush every time she types. Give in and run my hand up and down her spine. "Let me know if this, like, tickles or is annoying," I say. I rest my head against her shoulder. She presses a kiss near my ear.

"So, yeah," she says. "Car'll be here this afternoon. I fly out of LAX tomorrow morning."

"It was a dumb plan anyway," I say. Even though it wasn't: it was an awesome plan, with shitty execution. Drive to New York, see the country, rock out to cheesy playlists and sing with the windows down. 

"Turned out okay," Dakota says. We sleepily kiss for a minute or two, holding hands because we're apparently in junior high now. I even play with her ring. When we separate, her nose wrinkles. "Even if your morning breath is rank."

I breathe on her face as loudly and obnoxiously as I can. She pulls my hair. 

"I can come with you," I say. "I'll, like, fly out and hang for a couple of days before classes start," and because I'm an idiot, I waggle my eyebrows, "you know. You should take advantage of my oral fixation while you can, dude."

"Oh, god," Dakota says. "You're such a dork. Why does anyone like you?"

I lean forward, mouth against her ear. I suck on her earlobe; it tastes like her earring, metal and salt and a little like the motel soap. "Did I mention the oral fixation?"

Dakota smacks me with a pillow, and I go down easy. She crawls on top of me. Wearing the boxers I usually sleep in and nothing else. "Fine," she says. "But you're buying your own ticket. I e-mailed you my flight info."

I lift my head--feel the burn, Stewart--and kiss her nose. "Then again," I say. I flatten my voice: monotone and emotionless. "Maybe this was supposed to be the destination of my journey all along. Maybe this--"

"Shut up, Cullen," Dakota says, laughing like she doesn't really want to. She presses a hand to my mouth. I lick her palm, suck on the webbing around her middle finger. Her fingers twitch, and the arm holding her up slips on the sheets. I run my fingers through her hair, pushing it back off her face. 

"Oh, yeah, baby," I say. "Talk Sexy to me."

**Author's Note:**

> "Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running - that’s the way to live."  
> —Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums


End file.
